alway a 3 ~ Ne erected) ~re rence iy eo (ewes eoys CF Ere Opinion TheReview Wednesday, October 24,1990 — A18 Where authors fear to teach I was 14 when I dropped out of high school and tan away from home to pursue a literary career. After freezing all afternoon on the railway tracks near Ladysmith, writing lyrical poems about smokestacks and factories, I almost welcomed the police who came to drag me home again. My father said, “Get your education and the world will be your oyster.” I dropped back in to high school where poetry became my favorite subject. I was good at finding hidden meanings, but bad at counting metaphors and similes. Analyzing poetry seemed a way of avoiding the real issues. Before I tumed 15 Id left school for good. Twenty years later, though still not qualified to attend university, I became Writer-In-Residence at the University of Waterloo and taught Advanced Creative Writing on the side. It was a two year position and I got hooked on that monthly paycheque. 3 As my job drew to a close I considered my options: Unemployment and welfare. I was feel- ing so low I even considered enrolling in university. I could get my education. Get a job teaching. Get tenure. The world would be my oyster: The day I sat down to fill out an application, a parcel arrived. It was an anthology called Inside Poetry, meant to be used as a Creative Writing text. One of my poems was included. Question: “Why do you think Musgrave div- ided this poem into four stanzas?” I counted the stanzas and thought — it just happened that way. I'd divided the poem because it looked good on the page. “Is this poem optimistic or pessimistic?” the editors posed. “Defend your answer with quota- tions from the poem.” A critic once pointed out that most of my positive love poems were. written in transit. I'd always thought “Crossing to Brentwood on the Mill Bay Ferry” was one of those optimistic moments, but when I looked at it, and looked at it again, I wasn’t so sure. When I realized I couldn’t answer any of the questions about my own poem, I scratched the idea of getting a university degree. This fall I was hired to teach short fiction at a local community college. I was determined to be a conscientious teacher. Although I°d written short fiction all my life I prepared for my classes by reading endless books that told me how to go about doing it. “Write about what you know,” says Emest Hemingway. “Writing about what you know will fill pages with dull and uninteresting material,” says W.P. Kinsella. The more I learned, the less sure I became. “All knowledge is loss,”’ says the poet Rashley. A week before class started I phoned my students to ask them to bring a recent story and a sharp pencil to our first session. I got through to all eleven women on my list, but couldn’t reach the sole male who'd registered. I' got his answer- ing machine. “Hello, this is God,” came a voice. “I have no time to speak to mere mortals like you ...” He commanded me to leave a message after the beep but by this time I’d forgotten why I’d even called. The night of my first class, God didn’t show. For half an hour I spoke to my students’ concems about love, etemity, war and the meaning of life. Then came the hard questions, the ones I’d hoped they wouldn’t ask. Can writers be made, or are they born that way? I suggested we look for answers in their work. The first volunteer read a story, written in the first person, about a woman who didn’t find house- work creative. Her husband gets home late demanding “‘a goddam beer,” and “Where’s dinner?” failing to notice that the casserole, and his wife’s head, are in the gas oven. I avoided the story’s real problem by analyzing the point-of- view. The same husband-wife dynamic occurred in many of the women’s stories. The men were ugly and the women were sad. By the end of the evening I was wishing God had arrived. He might have provided some comic relief. “You should hear what their husbands say to them,” I told my own husband, who had my slippers and Ovaltine ready when I arrived home after the class. “I’ve never had men talk to me like that.” “You never listened,” my husband said. Next spring the college wants me to teach poetry. I was leafing through Inside Poetry to see how it was done when I came across “Puff the Magic Dragon,” the song made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary in the 60’s. “What did Jackie Paper have to gain from his relationship with Puff?” the editors suggested I ask. I made a note: “To be discussed.” I was starting to get the hang of it. PUMPKIN CARVING CONTEST RULES: Coniuy, SEs =e ae 7 DAYS A WEEK, EVEN HALLOWEEN! 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